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I Live in Public, Online – Privacy Beware!

Andy Kinsey — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:10:35 +0000

An open letter to online privacy advocates and politicians who want to take charge of the open internet.

Dear Privacy Advocate,

I Live in Public, Online. You can find my life, for the past few years at least, sprawled across the internet – mainly thanks to the advent of Social Media. I’ll list just a few of the accounts later.

My reason for this open letter is to explain why I believe living in public is not something to fear, but rather to be embraced. I do not fear people knowing I may or may not have health issues, I do not fear that due to tracking I can see highly personalised news feed and search results, I do not fear living in public.

One of the people I admire is Jeff Jarvis (@jeffjarvis), he lives his life on the internet and is like me an avid promoter of doing just that. He agrees with me, living life in public is nothing to be scared of. Indeed when he found out he had prostate cancer his reflex was to talk about it online, it meant he could find out lots of great information and through the world audience learn about what could happen, how to deal with things and most of all he received support. You can read his first post about prostate cancer here, do take not of all the comments and support he received. The reason for admiration is both what he does in life, but also his publicness (yes it is a word, not it probably isn’t in a dictionary). In his book public parts, Jeff share a hell of a lot of information and detail about his life and living in public and why it is nothing to fear. This letter was in part spawned by the book and in part by needing to air why I am happy to be so open and honest online, the book turned this from a thought-train to a letter (thank you Jeff ).

Jeff’s story is not uncommon. There are many cases where individuals or groups have placed their private parts on the internet, in a blog, in a video or maybe just on social networks. The reason is simple: humans crave interaction. Interaction with one another, as friends and also as we see on twitter and facebook with those we befriend, even though we may not know them like we know our family or those we’ve known for a long time. There is a theory which says you can only ever really have 150 relationships properly at one time, but I believe this is an old theory which in todays modern world is wrong. For instance on facebook I’ve nearly 1300 friends, facebook.com/search.andy, I know a hell of a lot of them in real life (more than 150!) but I also know a lot of those friends online, they help support my website design and graphic design business, they help when I feel down, they celebrate whenever possible and they interact with me and my posts (just as I do them). Taking this example further, if humans did not crave to be listened to and interacted with Twitter would not be the huge success it is today. Facebook connects friends and family, simple. Twitter connects a user with the world, they take an interest in your doings by following you and as you do with them also – you share your thoughts, wants, dreams and more! @andykinsey (me) has almost 2500 followers at this time, I follow over 2700 of interest, I make lists (organised for once) of specific people and types of people I may want to hear from, there are local lists, news lists, technology lists and more. If i just want to see the world at large I just view the timeline, hundreds of messages a minute passing by as users interact with each other. It’s funny how they probably don’t notice they are talking to the world, and those privacy junkies who want lock themselves off and close their feeds to public consumption. This is their prerogative, each to their own, but I want to live my life in public – I have no fear of being in public.

But why do I want to live in public?

I want to live in public, not because like everyone else I crave interaction, but rather because I have nothing to hide and everything to gain. Sure privacy is great and deserves protecting, I don’t talk about my family or anything I think may attach to others and harm them, I keep that private. It is our right to live in public or in private, they are not exclusive you can do both, as I’ve just attested too. The internet allows the public to speak, be heard, act, connect, collaborate and live in a more open society. And it is this final part I believe in living in public.

An Open Society is not about everyone knowing what your DNA structure maybe, it’s not about what you say alone, it is about the collective public connecting and collaborating to make the world a better place. Remember a few months ago in Egypt? A revolution for democracy made possible by the internet and social networks. When an injustice is done in the world, someone is imprisoned for the wrong reasons etc, the internet can be a tool for the masses of good public to be heard and listened to. Open Society does not end here though. It applies to everything! One of my favourite examples is with Pharmaceutical Companies, imagine if they shared all the pre-trial data with each other, imagine if they found a drug which failed tests and this data was shared, nothing commercially sensitive here but if they shared it and collaborated medicines would be better and they would improve faster. It is like lots of universities now foster the idea of collaboration, working with other universities and charities to find out new things and make things better. This is why I am living life in public, in the hope that with an Open Society the world will be a better place. I believe in privacy as much as living life in public, they as i’ve said are not exclusive they can work together.

So my privacy advocate friends, don’t you think it’s time for a rethink of your position to support an Open and Collaborative Society.

If you agree with me I would appreciate you leaving a comment and more so sharing this post in which ever way you see fit, just as I would if you disagree I am open to discussing my views too.

- Andy

> @andykinsey
> facebook.com/search.andy & facebook.com/AK.Designs
> +Andy Kinsey
> Also find me on flickr, linked in and many many other networks.

Sept 19: Talk Like a Pirate Day

Andy Kinsey — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 20:33:34 +0000

Well let’s see I talk in the plain english, most the time. Sometimes I talk in Andy-ish … but on sept 19th each year I speak pirate-ish

SEOAndy.com is joining my world in 2010 and will be speaking like a pirate

We’ve sorted it for that date and I will be releasing a plugin soon after for wordpress

So Sept 19th Why don’t you speak like a pirate? Get the plugin follow @andykinsey

Please Sign Petition > CML – NICE

Andy Kinsey — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 20:50:07 +0000

On behalf of my friend I would like to ask that you take time (if you have a UK address) to sign this petition to Number 10 (the PM) … all signature make a difference and will be greatly appreciated.

Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia is a form of blood cancer. The current treatment is Imatinib (IM). Approx. 40% of individuals may display resistance to IM.

Dasatinib (DS) & Nilotinib (NL) are licensed for the treatment of adults with chronic & accelerated phase CML with resistance or intolerance to IM. DS is also effective for Blast Crisis CML. Both received approval by the FDA & EMEA.

NICE do not accept the evidence supplied in the initial report, as they consider open label, non blinded trial designs seriously flawed.

Cost of supply is the issue.

We are urging NICE to reassess their decision NOT TO fund the use of these EFFECTIVE treatments on the basis of cost – without the need for 4 arm (DS, NL, high dose IM) double blind randomised studies including a control group receiving ‘best supportive care’ – allowing none of them to crossover and no dose escalations according to how they respond.

The NICE assumed average age for CML is 60.

Would you accept such a trial would be morally/ethically correct if it was aimed at young children with CML? What if your National Insurance scheme now doesn’t treat you with the best drugs because the cost is considered too high?

- Taken From number10.gov.uk

Please Please sign this petition today and ask your friends too also.

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/CML-NICE/

Please also tweet a message of support by clicking here.

Happy New Year 2010

Andy Kinsey — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 23:00:13 +0000

Hi There

Happy New Year for 2010

“this is a pre-recorded message for 00.00.01 01/01/10 – if your reading this please note andy loves you and your special in the head so happy new year and have a prosperous 2010, much kind hugs Andy”

Week One is Over – 30 Days Without Google

Andy Kinsey — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 20:55:37 +0000

Well it’s been a week and to be honest it is getting incredibly hard to not use Google for things. From search to checking ranks to finding links to a site and even using webmaster tools … it’s beginning to hurt.

A week in and I’m starting to find that going to bing.com means I have to wait a minute or so for that stupid image to load, optimised by backside! But thank fully life is made easier by the little search box in internet explorer! mercy!
Another huge issue has been image searching, something I do a lot of these days and bing means slow as it eats up my bandwidth (mobile internet) and sucks the life from everything else I am doing… I tried yahoo but results are rubbish compared to Google and Bing.

Other than this is it affecting me?

Yes, I can’t use my mobile browser and I can’t check my emails on the go! I think this is what hurts the most, knowing I am not upto date with all my emails and I have no idea what is happening with my clients when I am out and about! That Sucks.

I also have a sore back and shoulder …. apparently if you ask facebook this is withdrawal symptoms Google.

Week One – Almost Over Google

Andy Kinsey — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 18:01:05 +0000

So its been almost a week since I broke up with Google. It’s been a week of withdrawal symptoms and failures as I attempt to perform tasks for clients I can no longer do for them (such as analytic’s) … further to that the biggest pain has been my forgetful being forgot to export my contact list … so with my memory somewhat … rubbish I suppose I’m stuck and not only that but I can’t deal with half the stuff I need too.

Apart from that it’s quite easy….

or not! – I am used to checking emails on the go, checking facebook from time to time, nipping to a website or two for business and then doing a little note taking or maybe even recording a few sounds … but I can’t … thats part of android not the phone system. I’m back to 1999 and just text and calling people – to be sure my communication has upped this week.

Further than this Chrome has been my primary browser for a while now (since it launched in BETA) and to be honest I want it back … firefox is sluggish (at best), safari seems to crash every minute or two, and IE8 … well I like using it I won’t deny (i’m a pc) but it can’t cope with 25 tabs at once without an issue … at least not on my machine.

One last thing… most browsers appear to default to google for any address bar search regardless of what you set it as… deja vu appear to be IE’s frav method of using google … I want to use Bing c’mon IE it’s your search engine promote it!

Ok maybe this is the last thing, Bing can be painfully slow to load (on every page) … especially if your using mobile internet! Bing Bongs too much and fails to understand local business like Google can.

—
So now let the No Google for 30 Days continue on…. 2nd of Jan I will open Google with Pride.

Day One – 30 Days Without Google

Andy Kinsey — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:27:01 +0000

Well today has been a realisation of just how much I truly rely on Google.

From simple searches, to image searches and of course to the most annoying part…. getting to my contacts.

I’ve still not established how I forgot to move my contacts. However this is a huge issue for me and there isn’t much I can do… they are stuck in GMail and that’s me stumped until someone can find me a way to get them out.

It took me a few minutes to change settings on my computers … all 5 of them (personal and work). Then I realised I hadn’t quite done everything …default browsers and email clients had been changed, desktop turned off and homepages changed. But I forgot something important direct search from the address bar! … as soon as the page appeared I almost cried before realising it was only day one and mistakes are made… so i changed it and went off to Bing and/or Yahoo! for the rest of the day.

My phone hasn’t been too much of an issue as I’ve hidden my icons for the internet and mail clients. E-mails have been set to forward so there is no issue here… my few issues are in I miss the speed and reliability of Google Chrome… and I feel like I’ve lost a limb… oh wait there is one more thing.

I miss my contacts!

10 SEO’s you MUST follow on Twitter

Andy Kinsey — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 19:17:57 +0000

Now I’ve held off this post for sometime, mainly because I couldn’t quite decide who should be on my list…or why I preferred some people over others.

Anyway my list is complete …

TOP 5

1. Matt Cutts – The Google head of webspam
2. Michael Gray – GrayWolf … a great SEO
3. Lee Odden – Always worth more than a single look
4. Jennifer Laycock – An SEO Whizz
5. SEOmoz – The website of this company is superb

See the full list here – http://twitter.com/andykinsey/top-seos/members

—-

Visit our Christmas SEO site – http://xmasseo.co.uk

73 Days until Christmas

Andy Kinsey — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:55:14 +0000

Ok so before I begin this post today I want to pay tribute to an amazing web developer whom recently passed away, he will be massively missed by everyone who knew him and the web community as a whole… @leunix

Today I was looking around the web, nothing really exciting here if we are honest. However I stumbled across a site that I really with I had seen before because I scared the heck out of me… there are 73 Days until Christmas!!!! … its scary because I’ve not bought presents… the only good thing is I have already started my Christmas SEO strategy sometime ago.

So I have began my next big long term SEO strategy with all of my clients (not so much my own sites if I am honest), and already with quite a few sites we are seeing the results we really wanted too… not least a good number of e-commerce sites turning up for number one for “gifting” keyphrases.

This year as part of my aim to help everyone out a little I will be posting a little tip or hint each day on twitter (which I will explain here every week).

The tweets have begun with the 12 days of christmas series at the time of writing this, by the time you read it there may be a few more tips online, generally I will post one or two a day … the final tweet it excitingly going to be Christmas day itself!

Tweet-Handle @XMASSEO

IE6 – Here To Stay

Andy Kinsey — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 06:13:23 +0000

Now, if your reading this you are obviously a designer or developer of websites… sorry guys but I maybe about to upset you… but deal with it because all of the below is true!

Internet Explorer 6 will NEVER die… its like that derelict building we all knew when we were a child. We all visited it to see how scary it was… some where scary some really were just an empty room and didn’t scare anyone. But my point is that they must have all stood there for many many years to become the state they were in (and probably still are). A few were eventually re-invented but IE6 will enver be… mainly because it already has been re-established with IE7 … which didn’t really do the job either.

Now, IE6 may never ever behave correctly, it will never run Javascript correctley or load CSS and images in the correct manner… without being very hacky in the coding of the site. However, IE 6 is here to stay! I am sorry but there is no hiding this… Corporations (and smaller companies) will remain using IE6 for a fantastic number of years yet… even though numbers may end up less than 5% in the next few years … I will still be testing in IE6 as should you… we all test (and I use) Google Chrome which is still less than 5% market share… so Test in IE6!

Other than the above why do I believe IE will not disappear?

Our own business clients still use IE6 on most computers – its only the IT department and Managing Directors (with nice new laptops) that don’t.
IE7 has been around a while and the stats show most people upgrading do so without really knowing… Upgrades are “high priortit” but not forced … I admit updates to IE7 do exist in SP3 for XP
IE6 may give ugly results, but surely we have become to decorative and have skipped the functions – these work just fine in IE6.
IE6 should be tested in always, and used as the final stopping point for website degredation (design for the latest and best but supply for the rest).

Still using IE6 … don’t worry… you maybe safe for now. You can still surf without too much fear. You can still see everything updated browsers do…sure it maybe a little misaligned and you may not get all of our shiny (ajax) stuff, so really don’t worry.

I will still be supporting IE6 for sometime.